An Assassins Crown

Chapter 29- Katara

My limbs ached from the countless days going in and out of these carriages. No more soldiers had bothered my slumber. I only just noticed that I had not seen them since. They hadn't been lurking around corners waiting to attack.

Everyone was silent in the carriage. Our breaths were all that could be heard among our silence. It rained outside. The wood around us was dampening by the second.

Dewy smells from the rain surrounded us. Rain had always been a favourite of mine. It's soothing in an odd way. The sound of it falling and that pitter patter on glass windows, the cloudy skies that stretched for miles. It was always intriguing when you looked one way and saw gloomy thunderous rain clouds and then you look to the other and see a glistening moon.

But, my opinions don't matter currently. Especially when I'm just in service of the King.

Although it did please me that I had gotten my dagger back. It was placed comfortably in a sheath on my hip.

Water dripped in from the ceiling falling on my head again and again from the same small crack in the wood above me. But I wasn't the only one getting water on them. Through every whole and crevice rain poured through. Wind blew open the curtains on the opening of the carriage. Rain pours in drenching some more than others.

No one flinched or made a move to try and wipe themselves off. Although we couldn't use our hands we could at least try to wipe ourselves off one way or another.

Thundering lightning crackled in the distance. Yesterday Fern would have jumped and maybe yelped but today she was still and unyielding. She didn't even flinch as the booming crackles sounded again.

My soul felt damp. A strange way to describe it but damp nonetheless. My body felt slow and out of control. Not in the way of anger but in the way that my emotions seemed flat. A horrible feeling might I add. My limbs felt heavy, my soul felt damp. I was sure others felt the same. I refused to be the only one that felt this way.

Annoyance seemed to spike slightly when more than just one water dropped starts to drop on my head. The coldness sent shivers down my spine.

Not too far away I heard an unusual crash. The next moment I was tumbling out of my seat as my head hit the roof and the carriage rolled. "Fern!" I screamed as I saw her flung near the door.

My head hit wood so hard I saw stars. My blood roared in my ears as I felt something warm trickle down the back of my head and to my neck. The bindings that constricted me released suddenly. I saw Roy unconscious beside me. I used my arms to pull me up a little. My head spinned and the ringing I heard hadn't stopped. I reached out to Roy and tried to wake him.

He mumbled and stirred but didn't wake up. I crawled to the exit of the carriage. My body couldn't avoid some people's limbs. The soldiers laid unconscious just before the exit. The device I had seen so many times was upside down on the ground. One of the buttons must have been pressed when it went flying. I lifted it up with shaking hands. My pocket welcomed it as I exited the carriage.

Screams met my ears as well as guttural cries. People covering their mouths and noses with masks ran around the skewed carriages fighting soldiers and hauling up bodies. I forced my body to my feet.

I instinctively went for one of my daggers when I saw Ferns unconscious body being taken by someone. My feet moved on their own as my eyes darkened. I went up behind them smooth like a ghost and slit his throat. He fell but Ferns' fall was stopped by my free arms. I took her to the carriage I was in and placed her inside deciding that it was one of the safer places for her.

My body felt like it wasn't my own as I moved.

I ran forward again and again stopping as many of the masked people as I could. They had an unfamiliar crest on them. Strange to even me.

What used to be my best tricks felt slower and less familiar. As I knelt to sweep under one of their legs my loose hair was pulled. A strangled cry fell from my lips. My head hit the ground again painfully. A cloth muffled my raspy breaths. I struggled but I was held down.

No. This can't be happening.

I rip my arm from the figure's grip and punch them. The world seems to rush around me as I struggle to find my way to my feet. What was on that cloth?

Other people- no Linury only had been getting these clothes onto their faces. As the world spun and black clouded my vision I heard a whisper in my ear.

"It's not going to hurt you." a pause of the male's deep voice, "were here to help". Then the world turned a deafening black.